


Survival

by Jael73



Category: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
Genre: F/M, Harry is not a snob, Harry is not gay
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-15
Updated: 2015-03-13
Packaged: 2018-03-13 03:03:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3365324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jael73/pseuds/Jael73
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry survives the gun shot to his head. But how will that wound affect him and is relationship to his forgotten wife? Deals with brain trauma, so plenty of angst and Harry losing control. Some swearing, mostly Eggsy at the beginning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Spies Like Us

**Author's Note:**

> Author's Note: Okay, just watched the movie, so here's my idea for saving Harry. Because he's badass. Please message me with any thoughts on brain trauma, charaterisation, or Things British People Would Say. :) And please forgive the Americanized spelling. I will try to correct to British spelling as I edit.

The melancholy beep of a life support machine was all anyone heard as time stretched on. Eggsy, now Galahad, caught himself holding his breath, watching the man on the bed. Roxy, the new Lancelot, stood beside him, tense.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner,” Merlin said quietly. “Everything happened so fast, and I was honestly certain….”

Eggsy turned to him. “You thought _Harry_ wouldn’t survive?” he asked incredulously.

“No one should have survived what we saw.” Merlin looked at him, a little perturbed that his belief in Harry was being questioned. “You watched Valentine shoot him, what did _you_ think?”

Eggsy lowered him head in shame, and then slowly looked back up at Harry laying in his bed, fighting for his life. “That no one could’ve survived that.”

“I’m most grateful emergency protocol kicked in,” Merlin explained. “Our people arrived only moments after Valentine left. Also, several Kingsman have agreed, though there’ll need to be a formal vote, that _should_ Harry survive…”

He trailed off as the room door opened. A woman. Eggsy’s brain barely had room to process her existence, though her existence seemed calculated to keep Eggsy from doing just that. She was moderately pretty, in a second-cousin-to-Emma-Stone kind of way, auburn hair falling to her shoulders, minimal makeup. Eggsy couldn’t guess her age, her long, straight skirt and tailored blouse being both stylish and classic all at once. She wasn’t young, but no silver could be seen in her hair. She was the type of person that you looked at, noted, and then instantly forgot when she was out of view. _Like Harry_ , came the stray thought, as Eggsy tried to shake off his worry and anxiety for Harry to better focus on the newcomer.

“Elaine,” Merlin reached out to briefly hug the woman with more emotion than Eggsy had yet to ever see from him.

“Merlin,” the woman said tersely, accepting the hug, though obviously holding herself in control by a thread as she viewed Harry. Her mouth twisted with the sob that she refused to let out. “H-How is he?”

“Alive. Alive when he should not be. The doctors can’t tell us more than that, for now .”

She nodded, breathing shallowly. She looked at the still form with such longing, both Eggsy and Roxy had to suck in air to control the tears that had threatened to fall since they had arrived. “My Galahad,” she whispered.

Eggsy and Roxy looked from her to Merlin, confused. Who was this woman that knew Harry's codename?

“Galahad no longer,” Merlin said shortly. Eggsy’s eyes about bulged out his head at Merlin’s next word. “Arthur.”

Elaine looked at Merlin, and nodded her approval. Merlin looked at Roxy and Eggsy.

“Lancelot and Galahad, I would like to introduce you to Elaine Hart.” He stared hard at them both. “ _Harry’s wife_.”


	2. A diagnosis

“This is the head of Kingsman medical branch, Elaine, Galahad. Codename: Morgan,” Merlin introduced the doctor as he came in.

It had been several hours since Elaine had arrived, and Roxy had left to attend to giving any aid the Round Table deemed appropriate in a world bereft of the elite that had run it for so long. Merlin had left briefly to give the Round Table an update, but had returned minutes before the doctor entered.

Elaine and Eggsy had not spoken much, other than for him to ask her if she wanted tea, arranging for a service to be brought in, and then asking her how she took it as he poured out. He felt immensely grateful to his mother just then, as he remembered when he was small how she had shown him how to handle proper tea. Just like “Oxford not Brogues”, that one pleasant afternoon had stuck in his head, filed away until the information became useful.

Eggsy tried not to stare, but he wanted to know everything about the women that Harry hadn’t had time to mentioned. Eggsy accepted that there really hadn’t been time for such conversations, with Harry being incapacitated for much of Eggsy’s training, and then the whole save-the-world-from-Valentine thing.

She drank her tea carefully, lost in her own thoughts. They had gone through character profiling during training, so Eggsy tried to apply what he had learned. Everything about her, from her lack of eye-liner but eyeshadow, the color of her skirt that matched her hair, her not-too-tall heels to the way she drank her tea seemed to allow her to blend into the background, even as he watched her. What Eggsy couldn’t decide was whether her unobtrusiveness was by accident, or a uniform donned for a specific purpose.

He owed so much to the man lying beside him, yet he knew that he didn’t actually know anything about his life. He had walked through his house, eaten his food, and hadn’t even guessed that a woman lived there. And that rankled him.

He had just about gathered the courage to question her when Merlin walked in. And then it was the doctor’s time to speak, which Eggsy realized was vastly more important than his feelings of possessiveness and inadequacy.

“Galahad – I mean…” the doctor started, looking at the current Galahad, unsure of how to continue. “We’ll use ‘Harry’ for now, Morgan, until the vote makes it official,” Merlin said. Morgan nodded, swallowed, and continued. It was a little nerve-racking to be in the presence of Merlin, with the famous Galahad-soon-to-be-Arthur as patient. And now he was supposed to refer to him by his real name!? _What a day_ ….

“H-Harry took a bullet to the frontal lobe at nearly point-blank range.” Elaine gasp, she hadn’t yet been told the details. Morgan looked from Merlin to her, and then back to Merlin. “The bullet was a 9mm full-metal jacket, used specifically to go through cleanly with minimal damage.” Merlin and Eggsy nodded.

“What the shooter obviously did not know was that Harry had been shot before.” Now it was Merlin and Elaine’s turn to nod their heads vigorously. “Yes, he was shot about 20 years ago…” Merlin started.

“And had a metal plate inserted for part of his skull.” Morgan finished. “Which deflected the bullet this time just enough…” “To knock him out and leave him looking dead.” Eggsy said, a grin spreading across his face. “Shit, old man, that’s fucking amazing,” he said to the unconscious Harry.

“How will this bullet affect him?” Elaine asked softly. Eggsy turned to look at her. Damn, he had nearly forgotten she was there. “Last time, he needed weeks of physical therapy after he was sent home.”

Morgan’s face went from triumphant to grave. “I honestly don’t know. Frontal lobe injuries are difficult to predict. I’m bringing in a specialist from our branch in the United States. But briefly, the frontal lobes are considered our emotional control center and home to our personality. They are involved in motor function, problem solving, spontaneity, memory, language, judgment, impulse control, social and …sexual behavior.” Here he cleared his throat, and Merlin and Eggsy both averted their eyes, trying to give Elaine a semblance of privacy.

Everything had gone so fast, from meeting Harry to saving the world, that Eggsy hadn’t had much time to think about Harry the man, well, being a _man_. What type of woman did he see Harry being attracted to? He knew Merlin liked men (don’t ask him _how_ he knew that, and he sure as hell wasn't going to ask Merlin to confirm it), but Harry had been too controlled, too… _mannerly_ , for Eggsy to make any inappropriate guesswork on the man’s sexuality. 

Elaine turned her back on all of them, facing Harry on the bed, but Eggsy could guess her reaction. Embarrassed, frightened? She gripped the bed’s sidebars as if she could banish her emotions into the cold metal.

“How long will he be unconscious?” she asked quietly. Morgan sighed, trying to give hope without giving false hope. “I actually think he’s stabilized. We’re going to take him off the anesthetic soon, so he should wake up within the next 24 hours. Once he has, I can diagnose his breathing and his pain level, and then perhaps take him off the respirator. He will mostly likely need to stay here for at least 2-3 weeks, and then I am only guessing his will need months, not weeks, of intensive physical therapy.”

Elaine pushed a stray hair from Harry’s face, and Eggsy’s felt his throat constrict. It was such a tender gesture. He wondered if he would even have anyone in his life that would touch him that way. Maybe he couldn’t see them naked, getting it on like kids in High School. But he did see her gentleness, her discretion, and her caring. And for now, that was enough.

\----------

24 hours later, as if on cue, Harry started to quietly moan and fidget. Elaine’s head shot up from the book she was reading ( _Frontal Lobes_ by R. Joseph), noting that his eyes were still closed. She pushed the call button for help and bent down to touch Harry’s shoulder.

“Harry, Harry darling, wake up, please wake up,” she said softly, with just a touch of desperation and need.

Both Morgan and Merlin came through the door. Eggsy had gone home to change clothes and talk with his mother. 

“He’s waking, tell him not to fight the respirator,” Morgan said as he came around to look at his vitals. A nurse stood by the door, waiting for orders. 

“Harry, open your eyes,” Merlin ordered. That actually seemed to work, as Harry cracked one eyelid open, then another. His face contorted in pain around the respirator as his eyes water from the bright lights.

“Nurse, lower the lights and administer 4ccs morphine,” Morgan instructed.

“Nnn…” Harry shook his head, trying to refuse. “Wha’ ha…”

“Valentine was defeated. You were shot. Eggsy has been made a Kingsman,” Merlin gave him the short version.

Harry’s eyes slid over to Elaine as the drugs kicked in. As his eyes closed, his words made her heart clench in her chest.

“Don’ know yer na…”


	3. A promise

Elaine didn’t know how to feel. She brushed back a tear that threatened to drop from her eyelash. Merlin had given her a room at HQ for the time being, and so here she was, alone, waiting for his people to bring up the few items she had requested from the house, mostly clothes.

She had few needs, little family, and had considered her job for the last 30 years to manage “Galahad, Inc.”: the needs of a Kingsman to live in society but stay apart from it – keeping the house stocked for nearly every kind of emergency imaginable, working with the Kingsman bankers so that the government bureaucracy never got too interested in them, fielding questions about Harry’s work from the few social friends she had from a charity or two – She abruptly remembered a line from a movie she had watched years ago, “Don’t arrange your life so that you end up alone right in the middle of it.” She thought back to how it had begun…

_They had moved into the flat above the Harts in the projects of London when she was four, and she was in love with their son from the day they met on the street corner...._

Harry was a quiet boy, older by several years, and didn’t seem to pay “Leine” any mind. She didn’t care. He wasn’t a bully or willing to push little girls around just to look cool in front of their friends, and always held the door for his mother, which little Leine thought was the epitome of manners. Neither family had anything, and both Harry and Leine went unnoticed through grade school by their surroundings, just two more poor kids that would never amount to anything.

Everything changed one day in June when Harry came home from graduating from Uni. He had gotten a scholarship, she had overheard, though no one seem to think much of it, as he was said to have gone into clothing design, which made everyone in the neighborhood decide he must be a poof, though they wouldn’t say it loudly, considering Harry’s mother had recently passed away (Harry’s father had died in a factory accident several years before).

Elaine was working at the public children’s center in town, still living at home. She hoped to save enough money eventually to attend the City University of London. She remembered distinctly reading a book on cultures in Asia went the door buzzer went off.

“Leine.” His accent had gotten softer, she remembered thinking. And he was wearing a neat new suit with a handsome coat.

“Harry.” She looked him straight in the eye. She loved him, she knew, but she had never agreed that the coy airs the other girls in the neighborhood used on boys was appropriate, no matter how plain and unassuming everyone told her she was (as if that was a bad thing).

“Could I speak to you, please?” Though that one sentence was more words than he had spoken to her consecutively in years, she shivered inwardly at his voice, so soft and cultured compared to everyone she knew. “Perhaps, take a walk?”

She nodded and reached for her coat hanging next to the door.

They walked side by side, without hesitation, to the park. They had both spend hours and hours here as children, sitting in the trees (Harry) or on the park bench (Leine), reading, watching the birds, or just enjoying air not clogged with the heavy smell of fags. They both now sat down on that same park bench.

Leine folded her hands in her lap, hiding her nervousness. Harry was having less luck, fiddling with his coat sleeves. Her mouth quirked in a small smile, recognizing the nervous habit as she realized she couldn’t remember the last time they had been this close to each other. Maybe never.

Harry looked up at the sky, and seemed to make a decision. “I’ve always loved this park,” he started, looking around. “It’s about the only thing I do like from this place.”

“Yes,” she agreed softly. There were few memories of her childhood that were pleasant, given her father’s temper when he was drunk (Leine stayed clear), and her mother’s penchance for the company of men at the local pub.

“I’ve taken a job at a… tailor’s shop downtown,” he said, still looking at the birds. Leine had always been able to read people, due to a childhood of needing to keep herself safe. She knew he wasn’t telling her everything.

“It comes with quite a few perks, including… a house,” he said hesitantly, as he reached into his pocket. Leine absolutely refused to believe what she was seeing, as he took out a small ring box. He held the box in his hand, looking down at it.

“The job will require some… travel.” Now he looked her directly in the eyes. Leine felt dizzy just looking at him, knowing that he was trying to convey more than what was just in his words. “And I can never tell you more than that.”

Leine felt herself blinking back tears. Now she understood why he was going to ask her. It was for something that was important in the projects. Trust. Loyalty. And the ability to keep one’s mouth shut.

Harry started talking faster. “You’ll never be able to tell anyone even that. You’ll have to cover for me to your family, maybe even lie. You won’t be able to have a lot of friends, and the friends you do have will have to be vetted. If they ever even find out what I’ve told you, you could be in danger.” He paused. “I’m not even sure it would be safe to have children.”

Leine turned her head back to watching the birds, trying to process everything. “Then why tell me at all?” she asked simply.

“Because I respect you. I know that’s not quite love, but…since Mother….” She nodded in understanding. He swallowed, and continued, “To be honest, I don’t think I can do this alone, and… you understand wanting to leave this place.”

He opened the box. The ring was beautiful. Tasteful and elegant. “I get to finally leave. And I’ve always wanted to take you with me.” The tears stung her eyes now. She honestly couldn’t think of a better proposal. Not for someone like her.

“Could I go to Uni?” she asked, as she stared down at the ring, trying not to let the tears spill down her cheeks. Harry’s whole face broke into the most beautiful smile. “Yes,” he said. “That would be wonderful.”

He took out the ring, and looked at her expectantly.

_“Elaine,” she said. Harry looked puzzled. “Call me Elaine from now on. It will remind us of… everything said today.” She looked at him intensely. Harry nodded. “Our secret.” And he put the ring on her finger._


	4. A Problem Like Elaine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry for the delay! I would never abandon this story, but RL tends to get in the way of creativity. This chapter will probably end up much longer than the other chapters so far, so I might actually post it in pieces. :/ Make sure you look at the updated date stamp (3/13/15)...Anywhoo....

Eggsy walked into Merlin's office with a storm cloud looming over him. Coming back to HQ from his mum's house (he didn't really think of it as his, he spent so much time at HQ), he had seen Elaine looking over the banister. _Time for some answers,_ he thought.

"Look, Merlin," Eggsy blurted, "Why does Elaine get to stay here? What does she know, and why -"

"Eggsy, stop," Merlin ordered. "Both you and Roxy need to come in and get the full Kingsman orientation. There are traditions that not been explained to you yet. One being that the spouse of a Kingsman after 12 years of marriage is allowed... certain information. After 25 they are basically told everything, except information that is confidential to a particular mission."

Eggsy thought about this for a moment. "So, Mum would have been told...."

"Your father would have had the option of telling her at 12 years of marriage, yes. We've found that married Kingsman rarely stayed married longer than that if the spouse was not made aware of certain aspects. Though it is still comparatively rare for knights to marry at all."

"Why Harry, then?" Eggsy mused outloud before he realized it. "I mean, I just never saw Harry...."

Merlin looked Eggsy in the eyes thoughtfully. "Harry Hart is an intensely private man. Do not fool yourself into believing you know _anything_ about him."

Eggsy bowed his head, chastised. "I know I don't. But he means a lot to me." _And now I'm pretty sure I don't mean that much to him,_ Eggsy thought in despair.

Eggsy walked out of Merlin's office much more subdued. His whole world felt like it had been turned upside down and shaken. He walked with his hands in his pockets to the medical wing to find a surprise: Harry was _awake._

\----

Harry looked up as Eggsy walked in. "Hey, Harry," Eggsy said shyly. 

"Lee???" Harry said hoarsely, looking at Eggsy through a haze of pain. "How-"

"No, I'm not Lee, I'm Eggsy," Eggsy's voice caught a little. "Lee was my dad, remember?"

Harry tried to control his breathing as two nurses and Morgan rushed into the room. "Eggsy? But you were..."

"Harry, memories will come back to you, probably in pieces," Morgan said as he and the nurses worked, adjusting his pain drip, etc. Morgan updated the chart to note when Harry had awoken. "A brain trauma specialist will be here this afternoon. Please don't stress yourself over gaps right now."

Merlin walked in. The room was starting to feel a little crowded, but Eggsy didn't really care.

Harry nodded as the pain medication started to take the edge off. The increasing pain had been the reason he had woke up. He looked back at Eggsy. 

"Someone else was here earlier? Was it... ?" Harry squinted, trying to remember.

You mean Elaine?" Eggsy asked. 

"Elaine?" Harry asked, looking puzzled. "Do I know an Elaine?"

Merlin looked over at Morgan, concerned panic on his face. "Is this normal?" he asked the doctor.

"I'm not sure, honestly. We'll know more when Cardoc has had time to evaluate him."

Harry snorted in impatience. "Merlin, it is int-t-tolerable to be spoken of as if I wasn't here." His ire diffused a bit at hearing his own stutter, and he made a face of resgnation. But he continued, "Will someone please tell me what h-happened, and who is Elaine?"

Unfortunately, the last few words were said as Elaine herself walked into the room. Everyone turned to look at her in horror as she made a small sound of sadness in the back of her throat.

Harry focused on her, but it was clear that he did not recognize her. Merlin cleared his throat. "I think it might be best if everyone could leave me, Elaine, and Harry alone."

Eggsy and Morgan nodded. "Please do not push him; Cardoc will be here soon enough," Morgan reminded them, as he and Eggsy left the room. Eggsy turned back for just a moment, to see straighten her shoulders. He felt like he was starting to see what Harry must have saw in her all those years ago.

====

Elaine and Merlin pulled up chairs next to the bed. Harry was still looking at her when Merlin spoke. "Harry, do you know me?"

Harry looked over at him. "Merlin, yes." He then looked at Elaine, and back at Merlin, obviously asking Merlin if she was someone that could be trusted.

"Yes, Elaine knows about Kingsman, and the knights," Merlin said simply. "Do not be alarmed at my next statement, however." Merlin actually licked his lips in nervousness. "She is your wife, Harry," he said softly.


End file.
